Set to kickstart in the second quarter of 2020, the cosmetics safety assessment training programme will be largely online based, with five modules taught through webinars by experts, along with several on-site practical days for students. The course – open to anyone with genuine business interest but best-suited to those with some level of background – will provide students with a certificate on cosmetics safety assessment, but Annelie Struessmann, president of CCE and brains behind the project, said this could eventually become a degree equivalent as the course evolved.
“The programme is very flexible; we can add modules when we consider that necessary,” Struessmann told attendees at the CCE’s 2019 Open Academy in Limassol, Cyprus on Monday.
Some key topic areas for course modules were outlined by invited speakers at the Open Academy: packaging, stability testing, finished product claims and cosmetovigilance.
“We now have an idea of competency areas,” Struessmann said, and the next steps involved fleshing out the full programme with the goal of finalising this by the end of 2019.
The CCE Board dedicated time to this on the last day of the Open Academy during its annual board and members meeting. Sruessman told CosmeticsDesign-Europe the final decided modules were: legal background, raw material specifics; toxicology; exposure, safety margins; animal testing ban, GMP, microbiology, packaging; and product evaluations, stability, efficacy, claims and CPSR.
‘Comprehensive content’ combining theory with experience
Marko Gerstenkorn, business unit manager and head of part-time programs at the RWTH Aachen Academy, said the course would provide “a fairly new approach” on informing and educating those wanting to become cosmetic safety assessors.
“We can set a brand-new standard of training and assessment. We want a concept providing, on an international basis, education and qualifications for Responsible Persons. We want to address increasing demands for safety assessments and also product assessments,” Gerstenkorn told attendees on Monday.
“We want to provide comprehensive content, including the theory from RWTH and the practical experience from the experts already working on that. We are creating a smart structure for extra-occupational applications and we have interesting opportunities and outlook,” he said.
Important contextual considerations
During the Open Academy, other speakers drew attention to increasingly important topics for cosmetic safety assessment, suggesting these warranted consideration throughout the training programme.
Issues like better understanding nanomaterials, working with Responsible Persons and within the European animal testing ban were touted as key areas to consider, along with the rise of personalisation, an increasingly digital world and global business.